Students of Sophia Polytechnic’s Social Communications Media (SCM) department have been invited to present research papers at an international conference.

Students of Sophia Polytechnic’s Social Communications Media (SCM) department have been invited to present research papers at an international conference.

The 20th annual international conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre will be in Hyderabad from June 24 to June 27.

The research papers, titled Gender and the Environment Framed in Mumbai’s Print Media, analyse the media coverage given to issues and events like the city’s water problems, the oil spill off the Mumbai coast in August 2010, the portrayal of sportswomen during the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games in November and December 2010 and the representation of skin colour and educational qualifications in matrimonial advertising columns. The researchers have analysed content from the city’s English and Marathi newspapers.

For the students, the exercise was a learning experience. “Most of the articles on the oil-spill focused on the commercial repercussions of the spill, rather than environmental damage,” said Triveni Kulkarni, one of the six girls who will be presenting the papers at the conference.

“Internationally, undergraduate research requires heavy funding, whereas our students have done this research with limited funds,” said Sunitha Chitrapu, a communications research lecturer at SCM.